Pavliv A.A. Statehood development in Russia in perspective with analogous processes in England and France (pre-Revolutionary period)

Abstract: The article focuses on the development of the Russian state in the pre-Revolution period (1380–1917) in a comparative analysis with England (1066–1640) and France (1214–1789). The research subject is the same periods of development in the lives of these three countries: liege monarchy, estate-representative monarchy, absolutism. The author traces the evolution of separate statehood elements (army, government, representative bodies in the centre and locally). Particular attention is given to the relationship between state and church. The aim is to construct a clear synchronised statehood development pattern in the above-named countries. The method of comparative analysis is used. The article examines the analogous processes and events in these three countries. The study’s novelty is that it is the first given comparative analysis of the unfolding analogous processes in the history of Russia, England, and France during the course of several centuries. The main conclusions resulting from the study are the following: modern England originated in 1066, France – 1214, Russia – 1380. This is why the analogous statehood processes “lag behind” England by about 150 years in France and by about 300 years in Russia. The equivalent of the English Magna Carta (1215) is the French Great ordinance (1357) and the Cross-oath charter of Vasiliy Shuysky (1606) in Russia. The parallels of the English parliament (1265) are the French Estates general (1413) and Russia’s Zemsky sobor (1565). The concept of a capitalist formation period in Russia from 1861 to 1917 is criticised, and it is asserted that with the beginning of the Revolution in Russia in 1917 began the Great Russian bourgeois revolution, which ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR and the collapse of the communist regime. This revolution marked the beginning of the so-called capitalist era in the history of the Slav-Orthodox linguistic-religious population groups.

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